Friday, March 30, 2018

(WASHINGTON, DC) – A government
exercise meant to test the nation's response to attacks against the nation's
power grid had the most trouble, not from simulated hackers or bomb attacks,
but from its massive stream of simulated newscasts, Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Largest
attack exercise: The utility industry's grid
security watchdog, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, issued its first report on the
GridEx IV exercise Friday, showing it to be its largest grid
and infrastructure security event so far.

Adding
realism gets difficult: To add to the realism of
the war games, the two-day event in November had its own simulated newscasts
and social media feeds. It began including traditional and social media in its
last GridEx event in 2015. But the expanded array of social media and tweets in
last year's exercise almost proved to be too much to handle, according to the
report.

Crashing
the system: The problem stemmed from
realistic newscasts competing for space on the same server with social media,
which nearly broke the entire system.

The media platform was used to
"imitate" social media, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs,
in addition to traditional media such as television, newspapers, and radio.

The platform began to buckle
under the pressure of juggling both network news and social media.

What
did the attacks look like? “We
give them an A-Team scenario” that makes it incredibly hard for utilities to
cope with the level of attack, said Bill Lawrence, director of NERC’s
Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, on a Friday call.

Describing
the attacks: The newscasts and tweets
began to flow on day one of the Nov. 15-16 exercise, in which unnamed
"adversaries launched coordinated physical attacks at predetermined sites
using vehicles to deliver explosive packages to damage and disable generation
and transmission facilities." Meanwhile, industry staff were seeing cyber
attacks across the system.

Fog of
war: Lawrence suggested one of
the functions of the social media component is to create the fog of war and
escalate confusion. “We live in a world of social media that our adversaries
can take advantage of” to “scare” and misinform the population, he said.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

(TACOMA, WA) -- The City of Tacoma released a Request for Information and Qualifications last week to gather feedback from private and public organizations interested in partnering with local public telecommunications provider, Click! Network.The city is working with CTC Technology & Energy, a consulting firm, to develop the RFI/Q and help select a partner. CTC Technology & Energy has worked as a consultant for U.S. public agencies for over 30 years.“I am optimistic that we will hear from a variety of organizations that see the Click! Network for the valuable, well-maintained asset that it is,” stated Joanne Hovis, president of CTC Technology & Energy.The Tacoma Public Utility Board and the Tacoma City Council came up with 12 community policy goals they will expect partners to adhere to, including: continuing public ownership, ensuring equitable access, enforcing net neutrality, promoting economic development and educational opportunities, and protecting customer privacy.In addition to meeting the community policy goals, partners would be expected to grow Click!’s customer base, upgrade the existing network, and provide support with operations.Responses to the RFI/Q are due April 27. Tacoma city leaders will review partnership applicants for Click! in May.

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Five-year contracts reflect stakeholder interest in
deferring construction of new power plants

(PORTLAND, OR) – The Bonneville Power Administration and
Portland General Electric Company (NYSE: POR) have reached power purchase
agreements that will help fill a projected shortfall in PGE’s generating
capacity after 2020, when its Boardman Generating Station ceases coal-fired
operations. The agreements will bring additional clean energy – primarily
hydropower – to PGE customers while avoiding additional greenhouse gas
emissions in the Northwest.

“These agreements are a great opportunity for us to
collaborate with BPA to achieve shared goals in the region,” says Maria Pope,
PGE’s president and CEO. “This benefits all parties, making the most of
available clean, Northwest hydropower to serve PGE customers here in Oregon.”

“These contracts are an example of how BPA is working toward
greater cost competitiveness and capturing the additional value of the low
carbon, flexible federal resources by strengthening partnerships with regional
utilities as we collectively adapt to the rapidly changing energy environment,”
says Suzanne Cooper, BPA’s vice president of bulk marketing.

Under two five-year agreements beginning in January 2021,
BPA will offer to sell PGE up to 200 megawatts of surplus clean hydropower
generated from the Federal Columbia River Power System. At any given moment,
that’s enough electricity to power approximately 160,000 Northwest homes.

Negotiations between BPA and PGE began after BPA responded
to an inquiry from PGE seeking access to existing regional generating
resources. With the encouragement of the Oregon Public Utility Commission and
other stakeholders, PGE reached out to BPA and other regional power generators
last year as part of its integrated resource planning process to see if its
need for additional on-demand generating capacity could be met without
committing in the near-term to construction of new power plants.

In addition to allowing BPA to take advantage of a new
opportunity to market its clean, flexible hydropower and generate direct
revenue as part of a broadening portfolio of power products, the contracts
allow PGE more time for new dispatchable resource technologies to mature to
help the company integrate increasing amounts of renewable power onto its
system. Dispatchable resources like hydroelectricity can help the region
achieve its renewable goals by dovetailing with variable output resources like
wind and solar to meet load swings.

"This is a great deal for the region. It's a
value-added product for the federal power system and a good alternative for
PGE. It puts off big new investments in gas that would have locked PGE and its
customers into fossil fuels for decades," said Bob Jenks, Oregon Citizens’
Utility Board’s executive director.

“Instead of building new carbon-emitting resources, PGE is
able to take advantage of existing clean hydropower, and BPA is able to lock in
a future sale to help strengthen its financial health,” said Wendy Gerlitz, NW
Energy Coalition’s policy director. “This deal is a win-win for the Northwest.”

While the power supplied to PGE’s system from BPA will come
primarily from federal hydro projects, it will not count toward Oregon’s
renewable portfolio standard, which requires PGE to serve 50 percent of its
customers’ demand for power from qualifying renewable generating resources by
2040. Qualifying resources are generally facilities that began operating after
1995.Counting both qualifying resources
and its owned and contracted carbon-free hydroelectric resources, PGE expects
its energy mix to be at least 70 percent carbon free by 2040.

Separately, PGE is preparing to issue a request for
proposals later this spring, seeking an additional 100 average megawatts of
qualifying renewable power resources to help meet the state’s renewable energy
requirements and continue reducing carbon emissions from its system. The
company held workshops in Portland on March 2 for stakeholders and potential
bidders to provide input before the RFP is finalized. If bids received prove
cost-effective for service to customers, whether power purchase agreements or
ownership options, PGE expects the resources acquired to be brought into the
company’s portfolio in the 2020-2021 timeframe.

(OLYMPIA, WA) -- The carbon tax in Washington is officially
dead as of March 1. The following day, however, a group of labor and
environmental organizations filed a citizen’s initiative with the Secretary of
State’s Office that introduces carbon-pricing.

The initiative would begin January 1, 2020 and would
establish a carbon fee that would cost $15 per metric ton. The price would add
an additional $2 for inflation each subsequent year.

If Washington’s 2035 greenhouse gas reduction goal is met,
and emissions are in line with progress towards its 2050 goal, the carbon fee
will be flat. The “Clean Up Pollution Fund” would be the sole beneficiary of
the funds collected.

The initiative is supported by the Affiliated Tribes of
Northwest Indians, Washington State Labor Council, Washington Conservation
Voters, and The Nature Conservancy, among others. Initiative backers have until
July 6 to collect 259,622 signatures for the measure to appear on November’s
ballot.

Senators Doug Ericksen and Michael Baumgartner introduced SB
6629 on March 6, which is nearly identical to the initiative.

About Me

Joel Myer works at an electrical utility in Washington State.
Prior to his current employment, he worked for nine years at the City of Shelton as Special Projects Coordinator.
In 1992, Joel served a three-month term as an appointed Mason County Commissioner. As far as it is known, he still holds the record for the shortest term for a county commissioner in Washington State.
From 1991 through 1992 Joel worked with Washington State University Cooperative Extension, where he conducted an extensive study of the special forest products industry and its economic value to the Pacific Northwest.
From 1980 to 1991 he was News Director at KMAS Radio in Shelton.
Joel is a 1991 graduate of the Evergreen State College, where his focus of study was economics.
Joel Myer is one of the 2018 award winners, Foundation for Water & Energy Education Haiku Contest.
He has been teaching himself to play the ukulele (with limited success) since 2003.